To follow on from my last post, here is my interpretation of the last post about the curator, the artist and the block of ice. In case you don't know I am the curator - well the worship co-ordinator - and Martin Poole was the artist. Martin has offered his reflections on it here. Here are my random thoughts on it.
Firstly, for the artist it was a far longer process and conceptually the process and art work always had an end point. The arrival of the piece at GB was the start of the end, and the end of a relationship that had involved experimentation, trials and visits, the destruction of the piece sped up the end of the process. For the curator the process was minimal, it simply involved supporting the artist in their journey, and therefore the experience of the piece of art was more short lived and perhaps there was not the length of time to build a relationship with the piece. There was not enough time to celebrate it before saying goodbye to it...
Secondly, the destruction of the piece reminded me of the book 'Lord of the Flies'. The ice block could have been Piggy. There was something very animal about it, very debased, and strangely very human. Reminding me of our brokenness. Perhaps, I should not have been surprised at the response, but I was.
Thirdly, the relationship that we have with beauty is complex. Can we cope with beauty? Or is there always a desire to destroy? Always pick the last flower, always destroy the last rhino, not being able to stop our actions before the ice-cap is melted...
"Can we cope with beauty? Or is there always a desire to destroy?"
This may be tangential but I would say yes, and might Derrick Jensen:
"From birth on...we are individually and collectively enculturated to hate life, hate the natural world, hate the wild, hate wild animals...If we did not hate the world, we could not allow it to be destroyed before our eyes."
May sound a little extreme, but if we didn't in some deep/uncouncious way have at least a fear, distrust or feeling of disconnection from the "natural" world, would we allow it be exploited, manipulated and destroyed?
I found the story you related disturbing as I think it describes a manifestation of a desire to manipulate, reduce, dismantle a created work of beauty which, whilst being acted it in a relatively harmless manner, could be indicative of a deeper discfunction within our human nature.
Maybe that sounds over the top...
Posted by: Mark Hewerdine | September 17, 2009 at 05:50 PM